Going to Taiwan

Google automatically translated Blogger into Mandarin Chinese for me. Thank heaven or I’d I have a real struggle reading anything right now* (*I’m having a real struggle reading anything right now).

My flight to Taiwan was supposed to take off Tuesday at 1 am, BUTT the travel gods had something different in store because right after my boarding pass got printed out, the computer system crashed and the airplane’s engines stopped working and the pilot spontaneously died. I don’t actually know what went wrong, I just know that the flight was delayed until 12 pm on Tuesday, which means I got put up in swanky hotel for the night (LAX Hilton, baaaaaaby!). After being shuttled back to the airport the next morning, I hopped on an airplane bound for Shanghai, China!

Why am I going to Taiwan, you ask? 12 other American lucky ducks and I will be spending the next three weeks practicing conversational English with Taiwanese high schoolers in the greater Taipei area. Our compensation is free travel (including the flight to and from Taiwan), housing, food, and sightseeing while we’re here. So it’s a sweet dill pickle!!!!

Anyway, the thirteen-hour flight was pretty great. I LOVE movies, so 13 hours of just me and a screen is pretty great!!! I watched four and a half movies, two of them rated R (so edgy!!) because they’re edited (most the time) on airplanes (cuz I’m that Mormon). (The King’s Speech made me think-cry. Twelve Years a Slave was just depressing and made me want to punch Michael Fassbender.)

Right before landing in Shanghai, we were shown an instructional video of how to perform in-seat tai chi to return regular blood circulation to the body. (Basically, it’s just Deb from Napoleon Dynamite telling you to imagine you’re in the middle of the ocean surrounded by tiny little seahorses but it’s an Asian and he’s a man.) After 13 hours of sitting, the tai chi legit did make me feel really good!!! I recommend it for everyday people!

The Shanghai airport was a nifty place. Some people are so small they can fit in their own suitcases, you get a little emotional realizing that this is where Mulan saved the world, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awe that basically everything I own was originally from China. Such a great place!!

After getting Shanghai’ed (lol!), we jumped onto the three-hour flight to Taipei. That was cool because most the members of my group got bumped up to first class since we’d missed our original flight. It was an experience like no other: chairs that recline to a horizontal position, complimentary dragon fruit, enough leg room to do real tai chi, and coasters. First class is lyyyyfe!!

We landed in Taiwan at 10 pm-ish. I smelled so bad and was so tired. Thankfully, I had a nice hotel room bed to sleep in (with my main man Bruce Mangelson #LoveWins).

Now we’re getting ready for English camp next week and (apparently) a typhoon. I probably should have brought more socks.